Sad When the Food Is Gone

From skwigg's journal:

Let's talk about sadness at the end of a meal and surfing the disappointment.

For dinner tonight I had two tacos, chips and salsa, and a piece of homemade peach pie, warm, with a scoop of vanilla Haagen-Dazs. When it was gone, trust me, I was SAD. Like boo-hoo-hooing sad. As I was washing my dishes I thought, "I want to keep eating lots of other things." Then I noticed the thought, hit it with an, "Is that true?" And quickly answered with, "No, it's silly. I'll eat delicious food again tomorrow." I was still disappointed, but only for like a minute and a half. Once I started washing my face and brushing my teeth, my little monkey mind jumped right to whether or not I should buy another bottle of Clinique Clarifying Lotion #4 or whether I my Garnier Micellar Cleansing Water was all I needed. Then I jumped from that right to the wonders of Netflix and happily thinking about what to watch tonight.

So, it's just interesting to note that what could have been a mindless bingey episode or an evening of using willpower to resist, TOTALLY went away just by noticing the thought and then letting my brain move on to other things without making a big deal about it. Acknowledge what's happening. Let yourself feel disappointed or mildly uncomfortable. If you can wait just a couple of minutes without acting on it or fueling it with more thought, it can go away.

I think the natural impulse when you feel an urge to overeat is to panic, or feel like you need to take action, or try to examine the cause of the urge in detail. All of that makes it worse. Your mind can jump around quickly and easily to other things if you don't create a log jam by fixating on your eating.